


It's Only When I Hit the Ground

by wirewrappedlily



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, M/M, Q's taken over the biggest criminal power in the world from M, but does he want to know who's tearing it systematically apart, mentions of torture, there will probably be violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:31:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond is used to gunfire, acrid smoke, the rush of adrenaline, and his very heart choking the life out of him in those instants between taking the leap and landing.</p><p>He's used to razorblades and the zing of electricity and his own flesh being the source of that smoke.</p><p>So to say that James Bond was used to the situation he was in, while sad, is true; he's very used to it. Has been since he was a kid, even before the 00's picked him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Opening Rumble

James Bond is used to gunfire, acrid smoke, the rush of adrenaline, and his very heart choking the life out of him in those instants between taking the leap and landing.

He's used to razorblades and the zing of electricity and his own flesh being the source of that smoke.

So to say that James Bond was used to the situation he was in, while sad, is true; he's very used to it. Has been since he was a kid, even before the 00's picked him up.

However, being in what was technically an international gang that ran the world from the shadows and the silenced shots had afforded him with some small measure of comfort, too.

Q, the unofficial head of the beast since the woman they'd both known as M had died (M for mother; M for murder), was Bond's protection. Q had been brought into the fold to make him obsolete in a way. Q had been brought into the folds between Bond's bedsheets when Q had frankly disregarded that, M's small smile on their backs like a spring sun breaking through the cold. Bond knew she'd meant for him to...broaden his horizons. He knew she wanted him to know exactly what the world was capable of. He'd been shown with Q, but hadn't quite gotten the picture until M died.

Now, Bond was tied up and being tortured and Q performed many miracles, but Bond wasn't sure how he'd perform this one.

After all: American "detention facilities" were meant solely to make their detainees disappear.

Bond had been a distraction given up to the authorities to keep the bastard he was hunting from being put in this very place. It didn't matter, really. Bond wondered what time it was, and knew that that didn't matter, because Q would be pushing a button and launching a missile that would go directly into the bastard's left nostril as soon as he found out-subtlety be damned.

Gun running, assassinations, drug control. Bond knew that Q hadn't ever had the stomach for it; still maybe didn't. Q would bring the empire of their little operation to a close when the time came. And Bond thought that might be rightly so. No one else could do what he and Q did. Bullet and gun; grenade and pin. No one was as good a team as they. When Bond had first wrapped himself around Q, he'd known that the man shuddering and easing into human warmth from ice cold was going to be the making and breaking of James Bond. Q had went lax into Bond like he'd been without air for days, and Bond hadn't known a living person could get so chilled and still be standing.

Bond had had to half-carry Q away from his computers, had ended up curled up with him in the one place no one else in headquarters knew he liked to camp out in on his worst nights. Q hadn't said anything, but had opened up bleary eyes and snuggled deeper into Bond's embrace.

It was strange to think of the peace of that moment when there was no end to the physical pain he was being subjected to. Q was his happy place, he was a tad shamefaced to admit, but it was a wonder he could think of him in a place like this. It was like embedding a diamond in shit.

They were the criminal underbelly, the last stand Queen and country had to being a global power. In the days of Conan Doyle, Q would have been called the Napoleon of crime, but that wasn't fitting. Napoleon had lost. Q never would.

"You know...my real estate agent wife would have done more to find me than your twink has, Mr. Bond." His name was spat with disgust. Bond smirked, not quite the one that Q regularly cursed out, but still infuriating.

There was a gun barrel suddenly pointed at the back of the man's head, and Bond wanted to laugh. "Actually, your real estate agent wife would've been the one to hire the hit on your life had I not caught up to you. Your valedictorian daughter would've wanted to burn your bones for being a bastard and a snake, and your son would have learned all too soon that you are a liar and a cheat and a sick bastard. Now, I may be his twink, but I'm also a king of criminal kings. They don't make them like me. You will release my man from that contraption. Then I'll put a bullet through your skull."

"You look like a bloody avenging angel...sir." Bond chuckled roughly.

"I've killed everyone here for you, James, let's not play office until I stop the bleeding."

Bond groaned as he stood, joints cracking loudly and barely-closed scabs pulling as he moved. Q hoisted him up, shooting blindly as he kissed Bond slow and deep, the last man falling dead to the floor. "Injured?"

"Not at all, not compared to you." Q whispered tightly, harshly. "I had their own electronics kill half of them." Q grinned like a wild cat, his eyes unhinged, black in this light. Bond thought he should be scared of the power inherent in the wraith of the man snug against his side, supporting him. Was everyone willing to kill for those they loved, or was it only them?

Bond groaned as he surfaced from the fog of painkillers and sedatives. Q loved him, respected him, but was an utterly slippery bastard who would do what he needed to, against Bond's wishes, for Bond's own good. Q's bleary eyes turned to him, and Bond's twitching smile beckoned him in.

Bond took in the room as Q stood to climb into bed with him. "You got medical to come home with us?"

Q pushed the blankets on his side of the bed down, climbing in and resting his cheek against Bond's shoulder lightly. "It's amazing what unlimited resources will get you. And I wanted you here more than I could convince myself to drag you there."

"You're good to me sometimes...and then sometimes you let your minions handle my check-in."

"You made me come home and sleep-"

"Did you?"

"Which time?"

Bond didn't want to smile, but he was hurt, in bed with his lover, and slightly stoned. That Q was dodging the question honestly didn't surprise him at all: Q slept just about as well as Bond did when they were apart, and as much as Bond wanted him to, he'd never change. Bond asked silently for a kiss, huffing in relief as Q's long, perpetually-cold limbs rose to enfold him. Q was careful with him (always had been, oddly enough, and Bond figured that probably that was for the fact that before Q, being treated with care wasn't something that happened to James Bond), his lips loose and soft as they kissed his again and again. "I'm going to need you to kiss me for real when I come off this high."

"One of these days, I'm going to set this world to burn and make you come away with me." Q whispered against his lips.

"The job can't last forever." Bond agreed.

But there, in their even, relaxed breaths, there was a silent promise to flutter their eyes closed on visions of the flames the world would spew, _"But we can."_


	2. Quickening

When James next woke, it was to the distressing discovery that Q was not wrapped around him, or even lounging, supine and tempting, over the armchair that he so often sat sentry in when James was on the mend. If James could have sat up to look for him without the risk of said lover catching him and having him handcuffed to the bed for his own good, James would have in a heartbeat. The pain was nothing; he didn't care if the stitches pulled. But Q had an annoying and perfect habit of keeping his favourite operative taken care of, whether James wanted to be taken care of or not. 

The door to the bedroom opened and Eve Moneypenny strode through; and if Q was a wrathful angel, Eve was the siren that decided to hop on for the carnage of it all. 

"Bond." 

"Moneypenny. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?" Now he really wanted to sit up, but Eve would undoubtedly derive great joy in telling Q and watching him ream James for being thick. 

"Boss had to go to work," she sighed, draping herself artfully in the chair, "for some reason, he thinks it's not a waste of my talents to babysit you." 

James held back the over-slick comment that he and Q had christened that chair more times than he could really recollect, but it gave him a warm feeling in his heart to know that if he protracted it, she may even stay there long enough that finding out would lend cause to burn the prim, flawless ruby-red skirt suit. "I'm sure he thinks I'd have escaped by now." 

Eve raised a brow, "Why haven't you?" 

James smirked, "Honestly, because it's far more amusing to watch you stew in a task ill-fitted, drenched in boredom, than to give you an ulcer and a good, exciting chase." 

"He went after you himself." Eve said after a while. "It wouldn't have mattered who it was, M wouldn't have." 

"I know." 

"It makes him vulnerable, Bond--" 

" _I know_." He hissed, clenching his fists in the sheets, trying not to get angry. 

"You have to stop the wet-work, just be here scaring the new recruits into submission, we can't--" 

"I'm perfectly aware that if you lose me, there's a good chance you lose him, too. I saw him after I came back from the Maldives, Eve: I know what he does to get me home, especially when he bloody well shouldn't. There is literally nothing I would like more than to keep him above it all, and keep him from having any vulnerability at all, let alone _me_ , but it's a fat lot of good it does me, because I couldn't leave him if I wanted to, and I wouldn't even if you put a gun to his head; because he'd pull the trigger himself, and we both know it." 

"How an arsehole such as yourself engenders such loyalty from a lover, I will never understand." 

Bond snorted, "It's not me, Eve: it's him. He wants _me_. Do you have any idea what it's like to be at the heart of a man that could bring the world to its knees, begging?" 

"He wasn't born to be ruthless." Eve mumbled, finally giving up the ghost. 

"He was barely even made to be before M gave out." 

Eve's mouth tightened, as so many others did when M's death was brought up. After all: James had, ostensibly, caused it. He knew the whispers: that Q had ordered him to; that he was the Lady Macbeth, thrusting the boy wonder into power in order to have a few more scraps of his own. 

What no one knew was that Q could have taken power from M with a flick of the wrist. That the boy woke up yelling some nights because, like an angel perched on his shoulder, Q had been watching over Bond, and had seen it happen. In the dark, Q would tell him that if he dared to die on him, Q wouldn't stop at the world: Heaven and Hell would be on their knees, too. He was the voice in Bond's head of when to pull the trigger; where to plant an innocuous enough briefcase; what to steal. But the other thing he was was a gentle, careful man who would move heaven and earth to save a child, even if it was a child they'd orphaned. Q understood Bond's life before he'd arrived with the 00s, and he tried to soothe the marks that life had left on him, even with M long-dead now, and marks of Q's own to deal with. 

"He's not good at killing, is he?" Eve asked. 

"Oh, no, Ms. Moneypenny: He's a fantastic shot. He's good _at_ killing; less so _with_ killing." 

"Doesn't want to dirty those pretty hands." She mused a little callously. 

"Actually, Eve; I think it's usually better to drive the ones we kill into a spiral of such utter emotional turmoil that they take their lives on their own...But I'm told that's sadistic and cruel, so only the special ones." Q rejoined, leaning on the doorframe with his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "Thank you, Moneypenny; you've been invaluable." He didn't so much as look at her in his dismissal, sitting beside Bond's hip on the bed and taking up one of his hands, mindful of the IV. He only allowed himself to bend his head and kiss James's hand when the door gave a crisp snap closed behind her, smiling softly as he ran the backs of his fingers over James's forehead. "About how long do you figure you'll last on being good?" 

"Oh, at least a few more hours." Bond grinned his reply. "Work?" 

Q leaned into the touch when James raised his hand to curve the side of his cheek, fingers idle in his mess of curls. "006 is taking care of it." 

006, Alec Trevelyan, was not nearly as good at his job as James was, but he'd do in a pinch. "Do you have time?" Bond asked quietly. 

Q nodded, and rose, shirking his layers and climbing onto the other side of the bed, laying just short of being against James. "Six broken ribs, electrical burns to five percent of your body, a slight change in your heartbeat--because they waterboarded you until it stopped twice, and two broken bones in your left hand. I'm not even going to go into the malnourishment, the abrasions, or the concussion." Fingers more clever than any pianist's traced winding patterns over the shirt covering James's chest. 

"You should not have been the one to come and rescue me." James told him softly; they both already knew it, and though James particularly cared, Q couldn't bring himself to. 

"I don't trust you to anyone else." Q whispered the reply, kissing Bond's cheek gingerly, mindful of the fading impact of brass-knuckled fists. 

"You don't have time not to--" 

Clever fingers alighted on his lips lighter than a moth's wing, and Bond stared into the eyes of the man that utterly owned him, body and soul. "I will make time." He whispered. "I will make time stop, if I have to." 

James kissed him then, because he couldn't take any more. He couldn't take the love in Q's eyes, or the youth in his features. The blatant disrespect for what his predecessors had done. James wondered if there had ever been a mastermind quite like Q, in love with someone like him. In love enough to risk it all. 

The thought that he probably didn't know because risking it all had been their downfall was chased out of his head when Q pressed butterfly kisses over his skin, talking to him in that calm, warm voice as he lulled James back into a healing sleep. 

~

Q only authorized the killing of an enemy, but Alec rarely played by the book with them. 

He hadn't counted on the bloody morality in a crime organization. 

He also didn't see the shooter or hear the telltale click that was the only portent of death that mattered to a 00.

And then 006 was no longer. 

~

The only reason he wasn't tranqed and dragged back to his bed was because he was making Q breakfast, and he was so aware of that fact. Q had stolen one of his silk shirts, liking the way it hung off of his much thinner frame, and Bond was standing in the slanted, late-afternoon light of the kitchen in his sweatpants, humming something that wasn't a song. 

Q stumbled over his feet until he was in Bond's space, placing his mouth against the back of Bond's shoulder, where there wasn't a bruise, laceration, or burn, but a nice, star-shaped scar from the time Moneypenny had tried to murder him (Q had not forgiven her, but she was labouring under the impression he must've). "You should be resting." Q muffled into his tan skin, just before lightly biting down on his shoulder. James hissed, turning his head as Q's long, thin hands finally came up and wrapped around his stomach, resting low on his stomach. 

"Don't bite the injured." Bond chastised half-heartedly, letting himself relax into the arms around him. James closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the frying pan and letting himself revel in the warm body wrapped around his while he could before the toast popped. Q pressed his soft mouth to the curve of muscle that resided so temptingly from James's neck to shoulder, his hands turning possessive on the scarred skin beneath them. "It shouldn't have been you," James whispered. 

"Then the bloody Americans should have known better than to abduct and torture you." Q replied simply. "Or did you forget that I could hear it?" Long fingers dug deliciously through his hair before Q tugged softly at his right ear; where an implant that couldn't be removed served as a constant connection from any member of their little gang to homebase. Q could hear James whenever he wanted, though he tended to stop talking to James when he decided it was time for an intervention. 

It wasn't the first time that James had been faced with the aftermath of what his pain could do to Q: but Q being the one to save him still made something dark and frighteningly protective want to snarl at the thought of Q being endangered. In the short span before they'd fallen into each other's sheets, Q had been forced to listen to the man he harboured more powerful feelings than the tides could match raped, strangled, damn near blown up, shot at, and nearly castrated. And even after they'd become fuckbuddies, Q had been made to watch as Bond was branded by another gang. James had removed the mark staring into Q's eyes through the pain; stoic and set as acid changed the mark recognizably, and that was when Q couldn't take hiding his feelings, because James hadn't removed the mark for _M_ , he'd done it for _Q_ , and that was more of a sign of love, to Q, than any he could be offered. When the feelings came out, Bond had pinned him by his bone-thin hips and fucked his tongue in his mouth so thoroughly that Q hadn't been able to look at him for a week without blushing, just knowing what the man could do with that tongue. And though M still had James sleeping with the wives of drug lords and scamming information from orgasm off of the pretty, efficient underlings that knew just too much to be safe for their boss, James was faithful, as much as he possibly could be. 

Q hadn't sent him on one of those jobs since getting into power (it was rumoured that Q was jealous; not that James had told him, finally, how he scrubbed his skin raw every time it happened.) and James had not once strayed (there were whispers that even Bond feared the boss. They weren't true for the reasons they thought they were, though.); Q had never seen his lover's back scrubbed to bleeding to try to erase the nail marks left again, and would never see James drunkenly trying to insist that Q couldn't love James Bond: the bastard wasn't worth it. 

There were still nights that James got melancholy, of course. James had his host of demons, just none of them the siren call of a pair of breasts floating in a violet-lace gown. James's demons dealt in the death that had been wrought that had kept him in line for so many years. James knew that no one was alive to know what Q so much as looked like. He also knew that he was the only person left alive that knew Q's real name. But it didn't matter, because he'd never gotten to be happy, so being happy now was not an option: not while it put Q at risk of a bullet, just for glancing his way. 

Of course, what James Bond didn't know was that M had had the ones he'd loved killed when she needed control. Q firstly would never stoop to such a blatantly stupid, underhanded tactic; and secondly, he would never have to. 

Q sighed as he raised a hand to cover the strong, steady beat of James's heart, "Mine." He mumbled simply,cuddled against the man's back. 

"Always has been." James responded wryly, sighing sadly as the toast popped. 

"Are your stitches intact?" 

"Yes, dear." Bond sighed, grinning as Q nipped at his earlobe, another one of his few un-injured parts. 

"If you don't tear them, that means getting rid of them faster." Q reminded him, sighing as he closed his eyes, cheek resting against James's back. 

"Already tired of giving me sponge baths?" 

"I'd much rather be riding you in our tub." Q sighed, put-upon, "Really, James: it's been years. I would've thought even a lunkhead like you would've grasped that point by now." 

James let out a low growl, making a concerted effort to not crush the butterknife through the slice of toast as Q's mouth opened against his skin, mouthing at bruises in a way that made Bond want to simply sprawl under the attention and take and take and take every ounce of tenderness those lips could give. "You could probably ride me on our bed now--" 

"You have six broken ribs and you and I both know your leg's bothering you." Q peppered kisses over James's back, reaching the hand not tucked tightly around his waist to gently brush over James's left leg, one he'd shattered by having the nerve to question M. (Sometimes Bond did wonder if Q hadn't taken the power from her, really.) "I want you back in bed for a while. I'll even stay and read to you, long as I can, just please, James, for once in your--" James turned and cut off the small tirade with his mouth, wrapping Q in his arms and holding him against his body as tightly as Bond knew Q would allow. 

"You have to keep the minions in check. You know how they like to taunt Interpol when you're not there to otherwise divert them, and I don't need to go gallivanting to Italy to talk to my contact at this particular juncture. I much prefer lying in bed next to you. Now, eat your breakfast and leave me to my pillows, I will call and have you read to me if I really get bored." 

Q bit his lip, but it did nothing to stop his smile. "I already sent in Moneypenny, she can handle the minions. If they need me, they'll call. Besides, it's not like I didn't work through my supposed week off, I am owed." 

James laughed softly, pressing his lips to Q's with more chastity than anyone would have easily given him credit for. "Sometimes I love you more than I can say." 

"You're shite at anything but cheesy lines and smarm: I am profusely glad to leave you speechless." 

"Brat." James chuckled, boxing Q in against the counter, heedless of the breakfast quickly cooling in the lazy light streaming through their windows. When James kissed him, Q went still: the ever-present background whir of that damnably amazing mind went quiet, and the restless tics that he had to be _doing something_ turned into lazy hands against James's skin, curling as much as they could into his horribly short-cropped blond hair. And James knew that he was a good kisser; you didn't get to where he'd gotten to by lacking in skill. But to be able to cool a mind like Q's with just his lips was something that James would never get over. "If I got your named tattooed...over a indiscreet part of my anatomy--" James's teasing roll and rumble of voice in Q's ear cut off as said hacker knocked into him just enough to shut him up, and ever-so-careful not to hurt him. James laughed more, tucking his face down against Q's skin and breathing in the scent of Q wrapped up in the scent of himself, lingering on the shirt. James grabbed Q's wrists, draping his arms around James's shoulders. 

"You're not allowed to let yourself get into any more pain than you already get into, James. I'm the wraith with the sharp tongue, total disregard of his elders, and more tattoos than a biker's bitch, remember?" 

James's blunt fingers traced along the buttons of his shirt, undoing each one so carefully that if he was lucky, Q wouldn't notice until he got far enough down that it was too late to stop him. James licked his lips breathing Q in, "You always hide them..." 

"I wield my youthful appearance like a club." Q quoted Bond into his ear, voice low and just barely more than a sigh, "I strike more fear into the hearts of those I want to terrify if they only see a boffin until it's too late..." 

Q's arms fell to his chest again as he pressed in closer, mouth just shy of brushing Q's jaw. James took the opportunity to tug, the silk flying off of Q's shoulders to pool at his feet, and James's mouth was on the ink revealed to him instantly. "No one gets to see you like I do." James breathed. 

"No one else ever will." Q promised, because he was young enough to make those kinds of promises. He never minded that James never promised them in return: He'd dragged Bond back to life too many times to mind if Bond can't promise that Q will remain his. 

James remembered one night, not long after they'd begun, when Q had wrapped himself in James's arms and they'd talked about what would happen if and, really, when James couldn't come back to Q. _Find someone younger and less likely to die._ He'd silently begged, as he listened to Q in the half-light of Q's basement apartment, always so shrouded in darkness back then. _I'm too selfish to give you up, so make me. Take me out. Keep yourself safe._ Q had told him that if anything happened, Q would be done. His wrath would be rained down from the heavens, but Q himself would be long gone; and it wasn't in him to do anything besides that. 

Far before that, Bond asked Q why he'd joined up. 

Q's only, unimpressed response had been, "Bored now."


	3. The Sand Inside That Hourglass

James stayed in bed for all of half a day after that, and everyone aware counted it as a bloody miracle. 

Q strode into headquarters with Bond as an angel of death trailing behind him, and as if there hadn't been enough tension in the room, the entire thing turned electric and unbearably rigid. "What the fucking _hell_ happened to 006?" 

"Life signs cut off around three in the morning two days ago; we assumed he'd gone to ground," a nasty habit that James was going to take the brunt of the scolding for, but he could take it easily if it meant getting Q a little less rabid than he was, "local police found an unknown male with his face actually blown off the intensity of the blast was so large, and there was no way for anyone to identify him until they uploaded an image of his tattoo to Interpol and the US database." 

"And it's Alec," the breathed sentence set everyone's teeth on edge, and Bond had to clench his fists not to reach for Q, if only to direct the maelstrom away from the minions cowering before their screens. "Has anyone bloody _else_ gone off-radar?" 

"No, sir." Another one of the minions piped up before he could make the first one that had spoken burst into flames with the sheer rage with which he was staring at her. "All have reported b--" 

"Bring them in. All of them. Now. I don't care what covers they blow, just get them back and fucking figure out what could've taken my second-best man's face _off_!" Q snarled, whirling and striding away. 

Bond did not follow, looking towards the first minion, "Was the ear implant working when he was killed?" 

"No, sir. A signal jammer managed to short it entirely--but we didn't try to activate it until the body was found." She replied, sounding small. Q would be furious that they hadn't had a beat on Alec's whereabouts for days, but James was tempered with the knowledge that the minions were aware that, sometimes, they needed time to come back from a kill. That James tended to come back from a kill in Q's arms had left Q just a few steps behind. 

"Q tested it with everything there is." Bond murmured, just loud enough for the terrified-silent staff to hear, "Find it, and figure out how the hell we can track it." 

"Sir--" 

"Find the frequency jammer, we have better chance of building some way to block it--let alone earning a way to track the bastard that's doing this. The gun can wait; this cannot. Eve." Bond summoned the woman from the shadows, not even regarding her as he stared at the image of a friend unrecognizable and so very dead. "Divide and conquer." 

It wasn't normal for James Bond to give orders. In point of fact, he had never given them orders, in any way; but now the logic was stealing them over, away from doing what their boss had asked. Bond nodded coldly as Eve swept forward, less a conductor of an orchestra than the harbinger of a kind of controlled destruction that she was known best for. Bond turned on his heel, tracing the steps Q would have taken, finding the man furiously pulling up file after file, his hands flying over holographic keyboards. "Don't." Was the only word he managed, slumping just slightly. 

Taking the tactical retreat, Bond leaned against the wall, simply watching as Q all but threw the files out of the holographed air, his green eyes burning with a cold rage that would make anyone nervous. "Alec was a friend." 

The quiet, simple words made Q freeze and whirl, his eyes flashing behind his specs, "Not a bloody good one. He killed the families of the last three alliances we've tried to make, and he bloody well--" 

Bond moved very suddenly, and Q cut off, an echo of their pasts rising up as the blond towered over to Q, taking his thin arms in very strong hands, "What?!" He hissed, eyes an icy blue that would make even Eve whimper for fear. "Alec did _what_?" 

"He killed them, James." Q hissed right back, standing under those hands, rising up to his full height with anger in every one of his features. 

"Why didn't you--" 

"Because I can take care of it." Q snapped, "Alec was a friend of yours especially; but for me, he was an asset first, and a friend second." 

"Did you talk to him?" Bond demanded. 

"I didn't get a bloody chance!" Q yelled. Bond stepped back at the same time Q did, and just like that the buzz of rage was gone from the air, and James took the two steps forward to grab Q directly into his arms, weaving on hand through the mess of curls. 

"You don't get to do this alone." James whispered, "I'm here: I will threaten who needs threatening. At least let me be of some use." 

Q sobbed a laugh, shaking his head as he curled his hands into fists against Bond's back, clinging to the fabric of his shirt. "You're the best agent I have. You're of more use than anyone. But I won't be having you lost to me because your loyalties--" 

James smothered that thought with a kiss, deep and desperate and horribly on-edge, "You are the one I am loyal to. Alec and I were old friends, yes; but Alec has tried to kill me, and I feel no qualms about my ability to threaten sense into the man." 

Q let a flash of possession flare in his eyes before he just pulled James into a kiss. "Why do you never tell me about the people who've tried to kill you that we work with?" 

James shrugged, "Because then we wouldn't have anybody, and in all fairness, I probably deserved it." Q growled, making James's mouth twist in a loving grin as he kissed the boss squarely. "Now, do your magic on the crime scene, darling, and I'll see if there's anything I can tell you about whoever killed 006." 

James pressed a kiss to the mess of Q's black halo of curls, and turned to the room as Q drew his boards back to him, calling up the images that Bond needed. 

Being in the business of killing people gave Bond more insight than Q or any policeman could offer. 

Under normal circumstances, he'd be on his way to the actual scene. But being injured and after someone who'd killed a friend, Bond relented to allowing Q's stress ulcer a small reprieve. The holograms flickered to life around him, creating the scene from the photographic evidence, and Alec's nearly-headless body would have been staring at Q if it had retained its eyes. Bond stalked towards the body, and Q immediately manipulated the image, making the resolution better even as he made the wound tract big enough that Bond could see every bit of damage done. 

"Flip it so it's the back of his head I'm looking at, will you?" Bond demanded, and Q did as asked immediately, trying very hard not to look at the carnage his lover was so intently studying. "Whoever did this didn't kill him face-to-face. And the weapon that caused this damage...it wasn't what they killed him with, just what took the evidence." Bond glanced up, "Indent of a shell casing in the sand there, and he didn't bleed as he should've if he'd gotten this hole shot through his head like we'd thought." 

Bond quickly pushed the image away when he looked up at the young man who owned the world; eyes still dry and ruthless, but face gone pale with what was done to someone he was meant to keep track of. James strode towards him, pulling the waif into his arms and simply holding on: the solid, warm chest pressed against Q's ear holding a strong heartbeat--something to keep him grounded. 

Bond was still turning over the variables, though; looking for the kill, because Alec was not an easy man to take by surprise. "The minions are going after the signal jammer." 

"I need to stay here until everyone checks in." Q murmured. 

"I'll stay with you." James whispered, "I can recuperate on the couch in your office better than I would at home, worrying." Q turned his head, kissing him squarely and wrapping his arms around James's broader body. He sighed, "We need to get in there. If only so that you can direct the chaos." 

Q nodded, and if he leaned just slightly into James's side until they'd reached the madness, James wouldn't say a damn thing about it. James moved into the slightly-secluded glass enclosure that served as Q's office, taking with him the weight that was crushing Q and leaving the calculating genius to conduct his orchestra. 

Bond laid on the couch that was there for nights when he was away and Q wanted to stay close by anything Bond could need of him--and for nights when Bond came back like fire and lightning and they didn't have a chance of making it home before he reached critical mass. The pain killers that Q had him taking made him just tired enough that he didn't care about the minions, or Eve, able to see through the glass that he could easily turn opaque. He closed his eyes and sifted through possible suspects that Alec would've attracted, only resting because Q's attention was resolutely needed elsewhere. 

There was a small hum in his ear, and James let a smile flash over his mouth--there and gone, "Talk to me." Q ostensibly ordered one of his minions, but James knew it was directed towards him. 

"I want to take you away to the South of France when this is over. We can claim anniversary, disappear for a few days. I can cook you French food and get you drunk on real champagne. Maybe I could even seduce you into a dance. It's been too long since I've made you dance." James smiled at the memory, Q all but naked and himself in not much beyond a bedsheet, dancing in the New Year in Spain just as the fireworks went off. "Or Thailand, if you still want to get the traditional Thai tattoo. I'll go with you, and I won't even threaten the artist with ripping his arm off and beating him with the wet end for hurting you." There was a soft hum, amused, and James smiled, knowing that Q was trying not to. "We can go on a trip around the little islands just off Phuket, and see the ocean shimmer like the sky when the stars come out. It's like Eden, Q." 

"I'd bloody well have to fly there, won't I?" Q grumbled, low enough that James knew no one else could hear. 

James laughed, "We can steal a jet. You can fly it with me. You don't have to give up all control." 

The deep breath on the other end of the line made James smile, warmed by the knowledge that he'd pegged his lover's fear in one. "That is interminably helpful." Q murmured softly. 

"I've been meaning to ask you..." James continued, swallowing, "if you'd ever consider marrying me." 

There was a shaky exhale on the other end, and James could just make out the soft clink of a mug against his desk. James looked up when he heard the electronic lock on the door softly chime open. "That...is not a suitable topic of conversation when I can't answer you." Q sighed, and the glass instantly turned opaque, Q striding across to James to drape himself over the man, straddling his lap and pulling him into a kiss. "Yes." He sighed, "Of course I will marry you." James wrapped his arms around Q's waist, smiling up at him, "You bloody great fool of a man..." 

James smiled as Q kissed him, "Sure you want to marry a fool with a short life-expectancy?" 

Q shrugged, "You're insured."


End file.
